


Day Off Honor

by jacquelee



Series: Star Trek Voyager Without White Guys [5]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Community: allthingsfandom, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 18:13:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6250246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquelee/pseuds/jacquelee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>B'Elanna takes the Day of Honor off. But that doesn't stop it from still happening. Alternate take on the Voyager episode Day Of Honor, set in the AU of my series Voyager Without White Guys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day Off Honor

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a challenge at [allthingsfandom](http://allthingsfandom.livejournal.com) for the bingo prompt Day Off Difficulties.

"I don't know. Maybe we just shouldn't." 

"How about this, I take the day off anyways and you can think about if you want to do the same? And then, you can still do the rituals or not and either do them with me or not. I will have a nice day off with a book if you don't want to and a nice day off learning more about Klingon culture if you do." 

B'Elanna was still unsure. She had begun embracing her Klingon side more and more on Voyager, but to go through with the rituals of the Day of Honor? Even after all the preparations she had been doing with Stadi, she just didn't know if she could do that. But when Stadi got up from the table they were sitting at in the mess hall, she looked up. 

"Thank you." 

Stadi smiled and nodded slightly before she went away. B'Elanna knew she meant well. Next to Chakotay, Stadi was the best friend she ever had. If there was such a thing as her having friends in the first place that was, especially a best friend. When she first came to Voyager, she wouldn't even slightly have imagined to become friends with any of the Starfleet crew, especially not with a telepath. 

But when she first met Stadi after she had broken Carey's nose, and Stadi had revealed that she herself had broken the nose of a guy that had tried to hit on her, Tom Paris, she suddenly had much more respect for this woman and lost quite a bit of her initial distrust. 

Especially when Veronica had told her that she never actually used her telepathic abilities for anything but communication, meaning the only thoughts she read where the ones that were openly communicated to her and she only ever projected her thoughts in emergencies or to those that had agreed to that. 

It was a novel idea to B'Elanna to be friends with a Betazoid, but Stadi had made it easy. 

B'Elanna knew quite well that she had huge giant walls around her still, and Seska's betrayal hadn't made those walls any smaller either. But the crew of Voyager was so much more accepting than any other environment she had ever been in. Sure, the Maquis was great but they had been comrades, fighters with a common goal. 

Here on Voyager, for the first time in her life, she felt like she could have a family. A real one. And next to Captain Janeway, Stadi was the one person that made her feel like that was an actual possibility the most. That made her feel like she could actually be happy here as a full person, not someone who constantly denied a big part of herself. 

She was half Klingon. As much as she despised this part of her most of the times, it was still there. And maybe not everything about that was bad. Well, if you left out the pain sticks that was. 

That was why she and Stadi had designed a holo program for the Day of Honor. That was why she had asked her to participate in it with her in the first place. But then she had gotten cold feet. Was she really ready to do this? She didn't know. 

But maybe Stadi's idea was the best. Yes, she would take the Day of Honor off next week. And then she would see what would happen. Right now, she was certain that she could do this. Yes she could. 

***

"I can't do this." 

B'Elanna leaned her head onto the shower wall, right after she had told the computer to shut the whole thing off because the acoustic inverter had blown and the resulting sound was abysmal. 

Now she just debated with herself whether she needed to repair it immediately or whether she could just get out of having been pulled off of her day off by her staff because two people from engineering were sick and she was the only one available right now who could deal with a rupture in the coolant injector that made a reconfiguring of the coolant assembly necessary.

Or at least, that's what they said. And she knew that as Chief Engineer it was her responsibility to be available even on her day off. But it still sucked. Especially now that she actually had been convincing herself to go through with the Day of Honor. Well, it had been a bad idea anyways. 

She repaired the shower as fast as she could and went to main engineering without even eating breakfast. She was greeted by Vorik, who had solved the leakage problem and was now eager to begin the reconfiguration. She sighed and went to work. 

"Oh, and Lieutenant, Commander Chakotay was here, saying that Seven of Nine requested assignment in engineering and that we are to begin working on a transwarp experiment immediately. She will be here shortly." 

"What? No! I don't want the Borg anywhere near engineering!"

Vorik raised an eyebrow. 

"I don't think Commander Chakotay cares about that. It was clearly an order." 

"Great. Just. Great. Can this day get any worse?" 

"Is that an actual question?" 

B'Elanna sighed and turned to her instruments. 

"No. No it's not. Let's finish this up before the Borg turns my engineering into a circus, shall we?" 

Vorik nodded and returned to his post. 

B'Elanna wanted to just go back to bed and forget that this day ever even started. But that was not an option right now. So much for the Day of Honor. 

That thought reminded her of Stadi. The least she could do was inform her that she wouldn't go through with the Day of Honor. 

"Torres to Stadi." 

"Stadi here."

"Hey, so, I will have to work today, my day off just got busted and I guess that means the Day of Honor is also a no go." 

"Okay. Why? You can still do it on your break, right? If you want to." 

"I know. Just, everything already went wrong today and now I need to play babysitter to the Borg who wants to open a transwarp conduit, however that will work out." 

"A transwarp conduit? Who is navigating it?" 

"I don't know. I'm sure the captain will assign someone." 

There was a moment of silence and B'Elanna thought that Stadi had finished the conversation, but then she started talking again. 

"You know what, being the first Starfleet officer to fly a ship in transwarp is far more interesting than this book. I will ask the captain to assign me." 

"But at least you can have a day off." 

"It will be a day off doing what I love doing the most, flying the ship."

B'Elanna laughed. 

"When you put it that way…" 

"Shall I be there right now or do you need time for preparations." 

"I think about an hour or two for preparations. I'll call you when we're ready to go." 

"Awesome! Just don't start without me." 

"Wouldn't dream of it." 

After this conversation, B'Elanna admittedly felt much better. Maybe this friendship thing really had its merits. 

They continued working on the reconfiguration when the captain called on them to prepare Thorium for a race they had just met, the Caatati, whose majority population had been assimilated by the Borg and who now depended on the welfare of others to get by. The captain wanted to help as much as possible. 

While they were preparing the Thorium, Seven of Nine worked on getting Voyager ready to be able to navigate in transwarp. B'Elanna approached her, wondering if she had anything to say about people like the Caatati. She didn't. She just dismissed her inquiries by saying that guilt was irrelevant and then went to wait in her alcove until the ship was ready for the transwarp experiment. 

Feeling a little down again, B'Elanna asked Stadi if she wanted to eat a belated breakfast together and she said yes. In the mess hall, she tried eating her food and getting a conversation going but it was hard. Stadi seemed to understand, but B'Elanna still felt like a failure. 

Brooding over her food, she didn't notice anyone coming until the dish was put under her nose. She looked up into the grinning face of Lee Yeong, the self appointed cook on Voyager, one of her former crewmates on the Val Jean, but admittedly one she didn't know very good at all, even after three years on Voyager. 

"What is this?" 

Yeong frowned, her grin fading a little. 

"Blood pie. Remember, you told me to make it today, because you might want to celebrate the Day of Honor. I know you said you weren't sure but I thought since you're here with Veronica…" 

She trailed off, obviously uncertain what to say. B'Elanna looked at Stadi, suddenly very aware that people were trying to help her, to reach out to her, and that she had absolutely no idea how to react to that. She tried pulling herself together. 

"Thank you. I am sure the blood pie is great." 

She smiled a little and Yeong, seemingly relieved, smiled back and left. 

"I'm sorry. I would have told her to hold the blood pie but I forgot." 

"No, it's… it's okay, I just…" 

"You don't need to eat it." 

"I know." 

Staring into the plate of blood pie, B'Elanna was unsure what to say or to do. When she was a child, all the Klingon rituals had always seemed so hateful. But now that she and Veronica had talked about them a lot and that she had support in actually making peace with her Klingon side, they didn't seem that bad anymore. 

Maybe she had been wrong in her original assessment of this day. Maybe she could do this after all.

Stadi certainly seemed to think so, smiling at her encouragingly. And the blood pie was right here. Oh, why not? What did she have to lose? 

She tucked in the fork and while it wasn't the greatest thing she had ever tasted, it was also not as bad as she remembered. Even good actually. Yes, this was definitely in the general vicinity of good. 

After she finished, she felt brave enough to go one step further and asked Veronica to come to the holodeck with her to try out that program they had designed. 

"You don't have to do that." 

"I know. I want to. I think. If you come with me." 

It was one of the hardest things she had said in her life. She genuinely worried that it was too much, that Veronica would reject her. But instead, Veronica smiled. 

"Of course. I'm pretty proud of the program too, so I'd like to see it running. But if you feel like you want to stop at any point, you can." 

B'Elanna looked at Veronica and knew she was telling the truth. She could just stop and not be branded a coward. Which was a novel idea. Some part of her was very confused by it, but another, bigger part actually liked it a lot. 

They went to the holodeck and the first few rituals, eating meat from a sanctified targ (worse than the blood pie but thankfully less), drinking mot'lach from the grail of Kahless (some pretty strong stuff) and listing all the deeds that made her worthy (mainly just engineering feats which saved the ship, didn't really seem to impress the Klingon who led them through the ritual but were nevertheless sufficient) went pretty well and smoothly.

Theoretically, after these there would have been the ritual of twenty pain sticks but they had taken that out intentionally. No pain. But the battle with a master of the bat'leth was still part of the program. 

B'Elanna hadn't really fought with bat'leths much in her life, but she held her own. At least long enough for her to feel good about her honor and for Stadi to applaud, which made B'Elanna feel even better about her honor. 

Traversing the sulphur lagoons of Gorath was the most challenging part of the rituals. Stadi insisted in coming with her and in a way, that made it more of a fun adventure and less a torturous ordeal. They had nearly reached the end when Captain Janeway hailed with the news that everything was ready for the transwarp experiment. 

Sighing, B'Elanna conceded that they wouldn't finish this. Ah, well, it was nearly done and she felt really good about her honor right now, so this had been a success. 

"Computer, end program." 

Instead of in singing heat on rocky, toxic ground they found themselves in the hologrid. Veronica grinned widely. 

"That was fun!" 

B'Elanna frowned slightly. 

"I'm not sure it's supposed to be fun." 

Veronica's grin faded a little, but then B'Elanna herself grinned, a pretty rare sight. 

"But it sure was, wasn't it?" 

Now they both laughed and went to their respective quarters for a quick shower and change of clothes. 

Sadly, the elation B'Elanna felt about this part of the Day of Honor didn't last for long.

At first, the experiment seemed to be a success, but very quickly it became a catastrophic failure as tachyon particles leaked into the propulsion system. They were unable to stop the leakage, so in the end, B'Elanna had no choice than to evacuate engineering and eject the core. 

The nightmare of every single engineer. Where was her honor now? She slumped down against the wall and put her hand into her face. 

"I should have stuck to taking the day off. So much for the Day of Honor." 

"Hey, it wasn't your fault." 

Veronica crouched down next to her. B'Elanna scoffed. 

"My engineering. My warp core. My fault." 

"You weren't the only one there. Let's see how to fix this." 

Not very optimistic, B'Elanna got up and went back to engineering to see what they could do, which was not very much without the warp core. 

When the captain came to ask them for progress, they explained to her that the best way to get the core back was to take a shuttle and tractor it back to Voyager. Stadi would go as their best pilot and B'Elanna would accompany her to be able to stabilize the core for transport. 

During the flight to where the core most likely was due to the warp signature, they mostly spent the time in silence. B'Elanna dug her own hole deeper and deeper, berating herself for having lost the warp core, only talking to say that she would go to bed right after this, so that nothing else could go wrong. Nothing Stadi could say would have consoled her and Stadi seemed to know that, so she kept quiet. 

But when they found the core, they saw immediately that they weren't the only ones looking for it. The Caatati had already found it and refused to give it up, to a point where they damaged the shuttle irreparably. 

B'Elanna and Veronica had to rush to get into space suits and beam outside of the shuttle. They saw it exploding in the distance. B'Elanna sighed. This was getting ridiculous.

"And here I was thinking that losing the warp core was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. I was wrong. How fitting that I shall die on the Day of Honor." 

"Hey, we're not dying. We just need to send out a strong signal, maybe by interfacing the comm systems of both suits, and then Voyager will find us." 

"Okay, let's do that." 

They send out a carrier wave that hopefully would be picked up by Voyager. For a few moments they remained quiet, just floating next to each other in the blackness of space.

"You really believe that? That Voyager will come for us?" 

"I do. I'm not ready to die. I know Klingons do think that dying is the highest honor, but-"

B'Elanna interrupted her with a scoff. 

"I never believed in that particular Klingon tradition. Never believed much in any of them, really. I don't even know why I did all of this today. It's never going to get me anywhere. Honor, dishonor, who cares." 

"I don't. In the end, what matters is that you're happy, that's it." 

B'Elanna looked up. Through the helmets it was hard to see Veronica's face clearly. 

"Am I? I don't know." 

"The only one who can know that is you. I am interested in Klingon traditions as a whole because they are fascinating but I also wanted to help you design the program and go through with the Day of Honor because it seemed like you wanted to do that to help you resolve some of the war you wage against yourself that is keeping you from being truly happy. Maybe I was wrong." 

For a moment, B'Elanna couldn't say anything. When was the last time someone had actually understood her like that? When was the last time someone had truly cared about her happiness? Had it ever happened? 

"Why?" 

"Why what?" 

"Why do you care about my happiness? Why do you care?" 

Veronica laughed a little, more a chortle than an actual laugh.

"Because I like spending time with you. Because I think you are an awesome person. Because I like you, all of you. I thought you knew that." 

B'Elanna was stunned. It wasn't that she didn't think of herself as an awesome person or that she was resigned for nobody ever to be able to like her Klingon side, but… well, actually she was pretty resigned to that. Or at least she had been. Was it really possible? Was it possible to have someone in her life who saw her for who and what she was and didn't want to run away or change her?

"I just… I think I battled this side of me for so long, hated it for so long that I didn't even ever think anyone else could actually like it."

"Well, I do. I like the chill and laid back B'Elanna, I like the B'Elanna who has a cutting humor, I like the B'Elanna who says exactly what she thinks and I do like the B'Elanna who lashes out when someone is hurting her. Because all of these are B'Elanna. And all of them are awesome to be around. To be friends with." 

B'Elanna let out a little laugh, not sure what to say or even what to think. Nobody ever had said things like that to her. Sure, over the last three years, Stadi had become her friend, even her best friend, but she had still been sure that this friendship hinged on her suppressing her Klingon side as much as possible. 

Knowing that it did not was nothing short of a revelation. One that left her speechless. Instead of talking, she drifted closer to Stadi, feeling the urge for physical contact. Stadi seemed to understand and reciprocated as much as it was possible in these spacesuits. 

For quite a while, they stayed like that, in something that resembled a hug and that for B'Elanna felt like the most intimate position she had ever been in with anyone.

She felt tears running down her face, not entirely sure why they were there. She only knew that a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, a weight that had been there for far too long, holding her back. 

_I like you too._

B'Elanna didn't actually say it, not sure if she would even be able to. But she knew Stadi was always receptive for directed and open thoughts. 

There was no answer but Veronica moved in her arms a little as to keep her even closer and B'Elanna knew that she had received her message. Funny, really, how easy it was for her to communicate like that now, how much she had resented Veronica in the beginning for being a telepath and how normal it now was, how obvious. 

Just as funny as how comfortable she felt right here, right now, with Veronica. Even with their fates uncertain, there was nowhere she'd rather be. For the first time in her life, she felt whole. 

"Voyager to Stadi and Torres. Veronica, B'Elanna, do you read me?" 

The voice came suddenly, intruding into the stillness B'Elanna felt. She must have drifted off mentally. 

"We're here!" 

"Prepare to beam on board." 

They still held each other when they arrived at the transporter platform, being greeted by the Captain and Lieutenant Jones, who began examining them immediately after they took off the helmets. 

"They're okay." 

"Good. We got the warp core back from the Caatati and we already determined that what happened with the experiment was an accident. We debrief at oh six hundred. Till then, I appreciate that both of you took time out of your day off to help out on board, but I'd suggest that you call it a day and turn in." 

"Yes, Captain." 

"Thank you, Captain." 

They basically said it at the same time and the Captain smiled and left the transporter room together with Lieutenant Jones. In comfortable silence, Veronica and B'Elanna helped each other out of their suits. After that, they both ended up in B'Elanna's quarters.

It hadn't been planned but there was an unspoken need they both felt for each others company. They both ordered food from the replicator and ate together, finally talking, reflecting upon the day, everything that happened and where they would go from now. 

The one thing they both knew for sure was that on their next day off, the ship could explode and they would still not leave their quarters. No, Ma'am. This day had held enough surprises and difficulties. Next time, everyone could try as much as they wanted to get them to do anything, they wouldn't succeed. 

But one other thing was for sure, this Day of Honor had been a success. Not that B'Elanna wanted to repeat it but in a way, she had to go back to know that she didn't have to. She had to go back to know that her Klingon heritage was part of her but neither a part she needed to hate nor a part she needed to love. 

It was just a part of her. Nothing more, nothing less.


End file.
